


Death/Victory

by theficisalie



Series: Desert Heat [9]
Category: Bandom, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 05:55:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theficisalie/pseuds/theficisalie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stranded in the middle of the Zones with a madman on their tail, the Killjoys come to face with the most important decisions of their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death/Victory

**Author's Note:**

> Follows the questionable plot put forth by the music video for ["Na Na Na"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egG7fiE89IU), including the end.

**Chapter 1**

“Would you mind again just reminding me real quick,” Party Poison drawled, “why _exactly_ we’re sweating our asses off in the middle of the god-forsaken desert?”

Frank ground his teeth together so hard he heard his jaw crack. Party was probably leaning on the pristine hood of the BLI-issue car, hip cocked to one side, arms folded across his chest. Frank could practically hear the man’s hair falling in tendrils across his face seconds before he let out a huff. His jacket, ridiculously inappropriate for almost any kind of weather, squeaked gently as Party flicked his head to the side in an attempt to get his hair out of his face. Frank had no idea why he continued to do it, because it hadn’t ever worked in the past. There was no logical reason why it should work now.

“I doubt,” Frank muttered, blinking sweat out of his eyes and trying not to rub his oil-covered hand across his face, “there is a desert hot enough to make your ass sweat away.”

From his vantage point on his back under the car, Frank could just barely see Party’s ankles between the wires and bits of the car he’d been slowly dismantling. He could hear, however, the crunch of his boots shifting on the dust, and the empty void of sound that was Party’s mouth hanging open.

“Zing,” Kobra Kid said from wherever he was standing, slightly apart from the rest of the group. He sounded more bored than he usually did.

Jet Star was trying not to snicker. He was mostly succeeding.

“What the fuck are you implying?” Party spat out a moment later, after opening and closing his mouth a few times in quick succession.

Frank squinted up into the tiny pinprick of light that was escaping from the car above. They were so well-built that he was having a tough time of removing the energy converter he wanted so badly. “Not really _implying_ anything,” Frank said. “Really, _really_ , I’m just stating outright that you somehow always fill out those jeans you have.”

“The ones with the big ass,” Kobra supplied.

“Shut the fuck up, stickman,” Party snapped. “You wouldn’t know an ass if it hit you in the face.”

There was a pause. “Well,” Kobra said, drawing the word out.

“Gross, ew,” Party muttered, boots shifting again as Jet Star snickered in the background. “Stop it. All of you. Ugh,” he groaned, slumping back against the car. “I can’t believe I got stuck with the three fuckin’ mousekatketeers.”

“And me,” Grace piped up. She was perched on the one backseat remaining in the car, holding up the converter with her tiny hands. It was the last piece they had to get out: they’d already removed the entire battery system, as well as both of the motors and the charger.

“And you,” Party said. “Grace doesn’t think I’m fat, you guys. Do you?”

Grace was silent for a second too long, because she was busy watching Frank’s face for the confirmation that he was done. She shifted quickly when Frank’s eyes widened. “No,” she said, but it was too late.

“Oh my _god_ , I’m not _fat_! I’m not! I’m,” Party spluttered, “I’m just.”

“Big-boned?” Jet Star proposed.

“Cuddly,” Frank said.

“Meaty,” Kobra muttered.

“What would you know about meat,” Party said, and then, “oh my _god_ , get _out_ of here, you’re disgusting. I do _not_ want to know about Thriller’s...just, no.”

“Oh, what,” Kobra said, “so you can go around, hanging off _your_ boyfriend and _conveniently_ forgetting to put on pants at hours of the night that are indecent _even without_ pantsless brothers, but I can’t talk about _my_ boyfriend?”

“I knew that wasn’t a nightmare,” Jet mumbled.

“Well,” Party said. “If...do we really have to have this conversation?”

“Yes,” Frank said, pushing upwards with his entire top half to loosen the last damn nut. “Please, let’s.”

“Really, while Grace is here?” Jet asked. “And me? And...that tumbleweed?”

“I want to hear!” Frank yelled. “Come on, Kobra, spill, tell us everything, I want to know all about Thriller’s _ow_!”

“Shut,” Party hissed, deftly hopping away from the spot he’d been in when he’d kicked the shit out of Frank’s leg, which was sticking out from under the car so he could have some traction, “ _Up_. And for the record, I hate you all.”

Frank grunted, and strained before the nut gave and twisted. “Jet, hey, c’mere, Grace isn’t going to be able to hold that up once it falls.”

The seats above him groaned after a moment, and Frank quickly twisted the bolt free and slipped out from under the car. He could see Jet’s muscles straining as he maneuvered the converter out, carefully trying not to hit it on anything.

He turned away from the action and swiped at his face with his bandana. It felt miraculously clean for a second, free of the sweat and grime that had been collecting there for the past half hour or so.

“Oh,” he said, glancing over at Party Poison, who looked almost excited, despite himself. “Wow, you really are sweaty.”

Party’s head snapped over to Frank, a scowl quickly marring his face. “I hate you,” he muttered, and punched Frank square on the shoulder.

Frank pulled a face. “Ow,” he said. “That hurt.”

“Baby,” Party snapped, and stomped off to the Trans AM. “We’re leaving. I don’t want to sit out under the sun any longer than I have to.”

“There’s a gas station a mile into the next Zone,” Jet grunted, hauling the converter over to the car.

Grace offered Frank her hand for a high-five, and jogged after her dad.

Frank shoved his bandana into his pocket. It had mostly been drenched with sweat before he’d even come out from under the car. He looked over at Kobra, who had his sunglasses on and looked even more inscrutable than usual. Frank grinned, shoving his glasses onto his nose. “Tell me all about Thriller later?”

The corner of Kobra’s mouth twitched momentarily. “Deal,” he said. “If you can get my brother to put his goddamn pants on when he leaves the room.”

“I...” Frank sighed. “Deal.”

Kobra nodded. “Let’s go before he honks the horn.”

“Or worse,” Frank said, turning.

“Worse?” Kobra asked, following Frank as he walked back to the Trans AM.

“Flicks his hair at us,” Frank said, flashing a grin over his shoulder.

“The horror,” Kobra muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets.

* * * *

“It’s not that I don’t like ‘em,” Jet Star was saying, somewhere in the background, “It’s that they just aren’t all that useful for the desert, y’know?”

The ghoul muttered something back about wind resistance, trying to wheedle Jet into buying one of their products. They sometimes made things out of scraps salvaged by hoarders, and put together all sorts of little gadgets that were of no use to anyone, desert-dweller or no.

“He isn’t going to buy it,” Party muttered to Kobra, who was leafing through the newest issue of _Murder_. “Is he?”

Kobra grunted, and Frank heard the page flip. “Huh,” Party said, in a way that meant he was tilting his head to the side. “That’s...”

Kobra sniffed and ripped out whatever page they were looking at.

“Lend me that when you’re done with it?” Party asked.

Frank twisted his mouth to the side. He really wanted to see what they were looking at, but he’d found some sticks of dynamite in the gas station and had traded away their old battery for them and some miniature cans of fuel. There had been an old watch in the glovebox and some wiring left over from the old battery system, and if there was one thing Frank knew better than cars, it was what tools to make explosives looked like.

He twisted the last wires together at the end of one of the cans just as Party’s melodious voice reached his ears.

“Fucker, is that an important part of the car you’re messing with?”

Frank looked up, raising an eyebrow. “No,” he said. “It’s a bomb.”

Party blinked three times in rapid succession. “You,” he said, “know how to make bombs.”

“Damn right I do, baby,” Frank said, winking. “I’m fuckin’ ace at it, too.”

“We made the front page again,” Party said. He walked up so he could lean his knees on the hood of the car. “You see it?”

“I only read _Murder_ and _Shiny_ ,” Frank muttered, securing the whole mess together. He’d found a scrap of tape with the TNT and hell if this wasn’t going to be a thing of beauty when it blew up. “Paper sucks anyway, and I’m sick of seeing my fuckin’ face everywhere.”

“ _Shiny_?” Party asked. He tilted his head to the side and squinted. “That rag has way too many nuts for my taste.”

“Aw, come on,” Frank said, straightening up so that his back cracked. “You love nuts.”

“Gross!” Kobra exclaimed, from where he was already buckled in. “Stop! You’re gonna make me hurl all over the seats.”

“I’ll kill you if you do,” Party warned, ducking around the car and hopping in. “Don’t joke about that.”

“Then stop joking about nuts,” Kobra muttered darkly.

Frank very carefully tucked the bomb into the pocket behind Party’s seat, checking to make sure the timer was still high and unmoving. “You’re one to talk,” he said to Kobra.

“I don’t get it,” Grace announced, scowling momentarily when Frank patted her head. “But look, Frank!” She held out a white gun, shiny and new. “We hacked the vend! Kobra got me a _gun_.”

“Cool,” Frank said. He leaned over to examine it. “This is a nice one, too. You got batteries?”

“Yeah, we got some big and some little. I don’t know what the big ones do,” she said, unsure, “but the little ones go right in here!” She mimed shooting some Dracs.

Frank patted her on the head again, ignoring her cries of protest. “Show your dad when he gets over. Maybe we can joke a bunch more about Kobra and his nuts after that.”

“I still don’t get it,” she pouted, but her face lit up when Jet stopped outside the car door.

“You didn’t buy any of those stupid little heli-ants, did you?” Party asked, freezing when he caught sight of Jet in his mirror.

“Better,” Jet said, beaming as he hoisted the giant gun up on his shoulder. “I got us a shiny-ass _bazooka_.”

“A laser bazooka?” Frank asked, mouth open. “Oh my god. It’s... _beautiful_.”

“I had to trade our spare tire for it,” Jet said, tucking the gun down under the seat before buckling himself into the car. “But I think it was worth it.”

“Let’s just hope ours don’t blow out, then,” Party said, shoving the car into gear. His face twitched when the engine purred beneath his fingers: the modified BLI battery ran much cooler than the last one, and the whole system worked better as a result. Party’s eyes flickered to Frank’s in the rearview mirror and then they were driving, off into the zones.

* * * *

Ten minutes after they turned onto the road that Frank secretly referred to as The Zone Connector, Kobra turned to the side and glared at Party.

“What?” Party snapped, somehow able to sense when his brother was glaring at him.

Kobra didn’t say anything, but Frank saw the corner of his mouth twitch.

“I’m concentrating,” Party muttered, glancing over at Kobra. His eyebrows furrowed together, and the corner of his mouth that didn’t usually open tugged down.

Kobra’s lips tightened almost imperceptibly. If Frank’s eyes hadn’t been glued to his face, he would have missed it and the way the skin beneath his eyes tensed a fraction.

He looked over at Party to see the man’s left eyebrow twitching, and managed to catch the way Kobra’s shoulder stiffened in response. Party’s nostrils flared when he breathed out, and Kobra glared harder without even narrowing his eyes.

“Stop!” Frank snapped, twitching in his seat and punching the back of Party’s chair. “Stop _doing_ that! It creeps me the fuck out.”

“Fine,” Party said, not to Frank, and turned back to the road that he had been completely ignoring. Kobra barely smiled in triumph. He turned to the radio and flicked it on, and twirled the dials.

“Seriously,” Frank said, after the radio spat nothing but static for two minutes. He looked from the corner of Party’s ear to the side of Kobra’s face, ignoring the way that Grace’s knee was pressing uncomfortably into his thigh at the angle he was leaning forward. “How do you do that?”

“How do we do what?” Party asked, as the same time as Kobra muttered, “How do you not have an attention span?”

Frank flashed Kobra his middle finger, even though he was looking at the radio and not at Frank, and then he slumped back in his seat. “Talk without talking,” he said, glancing at Grace, and then at Party.

Kobra snorted. “You jealous?”

“No,” Frank lied.

“I put up with jarhead over there for thirty years,” Kobra muttered. “That’s why I know what he’s thinking.”

“Jarhead?” Party asked. “Really? What the fuck does that even mean? That isn’t even...an insult.”

“It means your head is in a jar,” Grace said. Frank blinked at her. “Like,” she said, rolling her eyes, “that rocky saying, head in the clouds? Only, imagine there’s a jar around his head, and he can’t pay attention to anything outside of it.”

Frank’s mouth fell open. “You’re a genius,” he said. Jet Star maybe beamed a little, but Frank only glanced at him a second, before he was inching closer to Party again, poking his shoulder with his index finger.

He was having trouble sitting still, all of a sudden. It was like the air in the car was closing in on him. The seat was too warm and too cold, his legs felt like moving, like running, and his hands wanted to pull a goddamn trigger.

“What?” Party snapped, twitching his arm away from Frank’s insistent digit.

“Something bad is about to happen,” Frank said.

“What,” Kobra drawled, “Your dust senses are tingling?”

“Sure,” Frank said. How could he explain the way his body felt like fighting, and how that always, always meant that there was something coming after him that he should be fighting? “That.”

“There isn’t anybody out here,” Party said, unsure.

Kobra’s nimble fingers stilled on the dial, static popping and crackling for a split second before an insane guitar riff permeated the leather of the seats. Grace gasped, eyes lighting up and hand tightening on Frank’s knee as they both stiffened with recognition.

“Fuck yeah,” Party said, eyes wide. The guitar seemed to hang in the air for a second before it crashed in again, accompanied by drums and a bass and the voices of the singers, gritty and wacked and _alive_.

Frank grinned and slipped on his sunglasses, pulling Fun Ghoul out of her holster as he leaned back, head nodding to the beat and voice aching in his throat a second before he joined in with the flying background chorus of “Na na na”s. They were all singing, he noticed, Grace and Jet and Kobra and Party, grins wide and free.

Party turned a corner way too fast and Kobra rolled down their windows. Frank held his gun up near his head, keeping up the background with Jet and Kobra while Party practically screamed out the melody, his voice dusty and beautiful in the stark, noonlit air rushing past the Trans AM.

Frank glanced out the window, to see a scrap of a tree and a shred of a bush fly by them, and then his heart dropped in the next second as white, black, and white were a blur past his window. Tires squealed under the music, and everything stopped even as it suddenly went faster. Party had his gun out, and he leaned it out the window as he craned his neck to see what was happening. A series of flashes made him draw in his flasher. He caught sight of Kobra tugging up his bandana and charging his gun. Frank nodded to Jet, and turned, hopping up onto the windowsill. His pants were falling down again, but he just grunted and ignored them. There were two bikes, which were doing some kind of fucking zigzag on the road. Frank couldn’t quite hit them with his one gun, and he glanced at the black car for a second before ducking back in.

“Korse," he said, eyes wide, looking at Kobra. "Gimme your gun." Kobra didn’t hesitate, just passed over the red plastic. He would use Grace’s, but it wasn’t reprogrammed yet. Jet was already shooting as quickly as he could re-prime, and Frank hopped out again, jamming his leg between the seat and the door as firmly as possible. He had two guns now, and shot quickly, aiming with the red and green as well as he could with the car swaying beneath him. Party veered them over to the side just as Frank caught a Drac square in the chest. There were more coming, he could see dust in the distance, and if Korse was in the damn car, it meant they were in for some kind of a hellish chase.

“Shit,” Frank shouted.

“Tires!” Jet yelled back, glasses slipping down his nose as he aimed down. The glass of the BLI windshields was angled so they couldn’t hit the driver or passenger, and Frank twitched his hands down to the tires, shooting as quickly as he could. The battery cartridges were heating up around his palms because of how quickly he was firing, about to burn out. He took a deep breath and closed one eye before aiming with Fun Ghoul in his right hand. At the last shot, just before his gun clicked empty, the tire hissed and Korse’s face widened in shock and anger.

Frank slid back into the car, out of breath as he tossed Kobra’s gun back at him. “Empty,” he spat. Two batteries hit his knee in response, and he scrambled to replace the ones in his gun. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted. His fingers were shaking too badly to release the clasp on his gun. He growled, thumping his head back against his headrest in frustration.

Tiny hands snaked around his. “Breathe, Frank,” Grace was whispering. He dropped the gun, letting her handle it, and shoved his hands under his sunglasses.

“Shit,” he said. “Goddamn. How did they find us so fast?”

“Fuck if I know,” Kobra snarled. “Not just BLI, fucking Korse.”

“What the hell?” Jet asked. “How the actual fuck did he find us? Was he just sitting in the middle of the goddamned zones?”

“Maybe he caught the broadcast,” Kobra said.

Frank ground the heels of his palms into his eyes until he saw stars. “Fuck. Fuck.”

“Shut up,” Party snapped. “Shut up, shut up. I’m trying to think.”

“Here,” Grace said. Her quiet voice in Frank’s ear made him drop his hands into his lap and stare.

“You guys,” Frank said. “Oh, fuck.”

Jet Star glanced over at Frank, and down at Grace, and then back at Frank. Kobra looked over his shoulder, and his eyes widened. “Shit,” he breathed.

“What?” Party asked. His eyebrows were furrowed together in the way that meant he was thinking really hard about their next step, and wasn’t entirely involved in the conversation. It was particularly annoying when he looked like that during sex, but that was another topic.

“Grace,” Frank said. “Grace is in this car.”

Party frowned. “What, you want a fucking medal or something? Of course she is.”

“No, I mean,” Frank said. “Korse is out there. Grace is in this car. Korse.”

“Korse,” Kobra repeated.

“I don’t understand,” Party said. “So what if he’s.”

“Seen her,” Jet said. He collapsed against the door, like all the strength had been sucked from his muscles. “What if he sees her? Oh god. Oh my _god_. We have to go back to the diner, Party, we...”

Party’s shoulders were slumped back, and his mouth was slack even as he focused his eyes on the road. “We can’t,” he said. “Korse will...he’ll find us. If we go back. This road is the only...”

“Where’s D?” Kobra asked, turning dials as he tried to find WKIL. “Maybe we could...”

“Lead Korse to the Doctor?” Frank snorted, but nothing was funny anymore. “Fuckin’ good plan, Kobra.”

“Well, you come up with something,” Kobra snapped. “Because I fuckin’ have nothing.”

“We’re in Zone four,” Party said, voice empty. “We can’t...the sun will kill us out here. How far do the cameras go? Do we still have that radio transmitter in the glovebox?”

“Yeah,” Kobra said.

“And some cans of kibble?”

“Four.”

“Rebreathers,” Party muttered. “Change of goggles.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Party took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Here’s. Yeah. That could work. You think?”

Kobra shook his head. “I don’t know. Risky.”

“Goddamnit,” Frank said. “Tell us the fucking plan instead of doing your braintwin thing. Fuckers.”

“You have a bomb,” Party said. “Jet has a bazooka. Okay. We are going to turn around.”

“Three is habitable during the night,” Kobra said. “So long as we don’t stray too near the diner...”

“Stay the night outside,” Party said. “Kill as many Dracs as possible. There’s that bit, at the edge between Three and Four, where the cameras don’t point. We can hide for the night, and...meet up at the car. Maybe.”

“You are aware,” Frank said, “That you aren’t making any sense. Right?”

Party huffed out a breath. “Can you shoot a bazooka?”

“I can shoot anything,” Frank said.

“Good,” Party said. “You can teach Grace. We’re going to have to drive through the Five canyons to turn around, the way I want, I think. If Korse knew where we were going to be, he’ll know that. And he’ll be waiting.”

Frank cocked his gun, more for effect than anything else. “So long as I get to shoot some Dracs,” he said, “I’m in.”

“Me too,” Jet said.

“I get to shoot a bazooka?” Grace asked.

“Yeah you do,” Frank said, patting her head. “It’s sweet.”

“Kickback’s a bitch,” Party commented, sharing a grin with Frank in the rearview mirror.

Kobra buckled his seatbelt and adjusted his bandana. His gun was already primed in his hand. “Bring it the fuck on.”

**Chapter 2**

Frank tapped the butt of his gun against the handle of the car door, click-clack-tapping along with the guitars tearing through his mind. Beside him, Grace was worrying at the beads around her wrist, catching the tiny pieces of wood with her neatly trimmed fingernails and tugging at the thread that held them together. He glanced over to his own fingers, curled around the worn edges of the vampire sticker. He didn’t bite his nails, and they were cut short, but they also had dirt caught around the edges, oil beneath the tips, and probably some of Party’s DNA, since he hadn’t had time to have a shower that morning.

“Would you stop that?” Kobra snapped, from the passenger seat.

Frank rolled his eyes. He didn’t sheathe his gun, but he let it rest in his lap where his leg had started to jiggle up and down. He suppressed first a sigh and then a groan when Grace shot him a look. Her hair was mostly secured under her leather helmet. Jet had tucked it in, and tugged the hat down when they’d stopped to stretch their legs at the beginning of Zone 5. Frank had been idly bouncing in place when Jet had got down on one knee and had adjusted all of Grace’s clothing, the set of her vest and the buttons on her jacket. He’d fiddled with her belt and straightened her collar, and even fussed with her hair a little before she’d slapped his hands away and wrapped her arms around him.

It hurt to watch a little, the strength of the love they had for each other. Frank looked away when Jet finally released Grace and she started adjusting his bandana and hair.

Kobra had stalked off the second the car had rolled to a stop, and had clambered atop a small pile of rocks before going through his routine. He started by stretching, and then started punching at invisible Dracs. His shoulders were strong, his movements graceful. Every motion was made with purpose: Frank could imagine his muscles curling and stretching beneath his jacket, each following the other until his fists were through a Drac’s head. He turned a few times, kicking and twirling.

Party Poison was fiddling with maps and the radio transmitter the entire time, hands busy and eyebrows furrowed with concentration. Every now and then he’d look up, eyes wandering without purpose while his hands strained to move the tiniest bit, an more often than not, he’d end up staring at Kobra’s cycle. Frank caught the look in his eyes, a love that idled somewhere deep within his bones, that was fully a part of who he was.

That was Party Poison, and it was Kobra too: Frank could see it in the way he fit himself into the car, breathing heavy but face calm, motions fitting with Party’s like they were two parts of the same puzzle. Jet and Grace had something similar, Frank had noticed the way she stood when she was beside Jet, stronger, mirroring his stance and trying to be noticed.

So what, then, with no ties of blood and bone to the desert or her dwellers, was left for Frank?

He caught glimpses of something in Party’s eyes whenever they’d glance over, but it wasn’t what the others had, wasn’t even what Party had. It certainly wasn’t something that Frank had. He felt like he was outside the car, looking in, wishing he could be privy to the link that made Party chuckle at something Kobra was just thinking or made Jet smooth Grace’s hair down for the thousandth time.

Jet leaned over suddenly, and placed his big, warm hand on Frank’s knee. “Stop,” he said softly. Frank hadn’t even noticed that his leg was moving.

“I’m nervous,” he muttered. His jaw was clenched tight with the tension of a fight he wasn’t sure how to win.

“I know,” Jet said. When Frank looked up, his eyes weren’t mocking or full of pity. They were just...Jet. “Save your energy for them.”

“Are you saying I should bottle up my emotions?” Frank asked, shifting in his seat to better face Jet. “Because that’s unhealthy.”

“So is walking headfirst into a fucking ray battle,” Party muttered.

“As if you could ever bottle anything up,” Kobra said, with a snort. “Ring me up when that day comes.”

Jet leaned back in his seat, the ghost of a smile on his face when he glanced into Frank’s scowl. “I’m just saying. We’ll be at the foot of the hills in a few minutes, and then you can...”

“Right,” Frank said.

“Not even a few minutes,” Party said. “You got your bomb ready?”

“Yeah,” Frank said. He reached into the pocket of Party’s chair and pulled out the contraption. “You want to use it as a distraction, or...”

Party was silent for a second, and then he cleared his throat. He shared a look with Kobra, and met Frank’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “I think there’s going to be a barricade, actually.”

“If Korse knows we’re here,” Kobra said.

“Then he’ll have something set up to keep us from getting through.”

Frank nodded. Made sense. “So you want me to throw it at a barricade?”

“Well, no. I think he’s going to chase us first, and I want you to use it then. No use throwing a bomb somewhere where it’ll explode all over us. Maybe we can take out a few Drac bikes and cars with that. Last time, they were waiting on a side road...”

“And they’re not very original,” Jet said.

“So any minute now.”

Frank worried at his lower lip and fiddled with the bomb’s timer. “Okay,” he said. “I got it.”

Party nodded, and fixed his eyes on the road. Frank breathed in through his nose, one long pull. He could feel something coming, it was in the air, at the back of his head, winding him up. He’d learned to pay attention to his body a while back, and it hadn’t failed him yet. The moment was about to burst. Sweat was beading at the nape of his neck and along his fingers, and when he felt like he was going to explode, he rolled down his window and tossed the bomb at the small incline and clump of bushes they were rolling past.

Party squawked in complaint, but Frank could see Kobra and Jet priming their guns at the same time as he did, bandanas pulled up over their noses, glasses down over their eyes. Grace just sat in the middle, hands folded in her lap. They leaned out the windows just as the bomb exploded in the near distance.

Frank could hear the wind and the sounds of cars firing up beneath the roar of the Trans AM, and he fired at the first Drac he could see. Bikes came up first, Whites on white vehicles, their identities obscured behind masks along with any scrap of intelligence they might have had. They fell way too easily to warrant the marvels of technology their bikes were, but Frank just turned to face their rear and aimed again. He could see Korse, at the front of a black car, waving his arm at Dracs and shouting orders.

As the wind whipped his hair out of his face, Frank narrowed his eyes, adjusting the trajectory of his gun to point towards Korse. The window would refract his beam, rendering it useless, but he could get the hood of the car, maybe clip the arm Korse was sticking out the window. The car pulled up closer to the Trans AM in a sudden burst of speed, and then Korse’s torso was out of the window, trying to lock his gun onto Frank, and the white beams from his white gun shot past Frank’s head. Frank tried to hold his own gun steady, but his hands were shaking too badly to keep it in place. He blinked tears out of his eyes, frozen in the light from Korse’s blinding grin like it was some kind of hypnotic beam. The Trans AM swerved suddenly, and Frank fell back towards the car as hands tugged at his belt (which was _not_ doing its job), and pulled him back in.

“What the fuck?” Jet was asking, but Frank wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were still focused on Korse. A dark cloud passed over his eyes and Frank blinked, suddenly able to move his limbs again.

He turned, and shimmied in his seat, tugging his pants back up along his hips. He scrubbed at his eyes, and mumbled something about the sun to the mass of hair that was Jet Star in the corners of his vision.

“Then use the bazooka,” Jet said. “Come on. Grace can help. Don’t fuckin’ freeze up this time.”

“We need the top down for that,” Frank snapped, scowling at the way his eyes were still burning, and ignoring Jet’s comment as best as he could.

Party groaned in the front seat. “If only we were in a convertible,” he said. Kobra snorted.

“I meant,” Frank snapped, “never mind.” He slumped back in his seat as Kobra followed Party’s incomprehensible hand motions. He’d _meant_ that it was usually safer to pull down the top of a car if it wasn’t moving, but whatever. Once roof of the car was safely tucked away, Jet handed Frank the bazooka.

“Don’t let them shoot us,” he grumbled. “Or Grace.”

“In the hills,” Kobra said. “Get the hills, we’ll take care of the cars.”

Frank adjusted the perch of his glasses and struggled against the velocity of the car to sit up next to Grace beside the bazooka. She had her hands in almost all the right places, on the trigger and on the big handle near the front. He adjusted her tiny left hand up to the front of the gun so it’d be easier to handle. “Use this to aim,” he said, close to her ear so she could hear him. She’d taken off her helmet so she could see clearly, and he gripped the trigger with her, steadying the back of the gun with his entire left side. Not so far back that when it kicked, he’d be sent flying, but far back enough that the gun itself wouldn’t be kicked out of the car with the force of its own shot.

“Ready,” he said, helping her aim for a Drac that seemed to be holding a pair of binoculars, “aim...”

She closed one eye and pulled the trigger, yelping with shock when it kicked up instead of back. The blast that flew out hit the Drac square in the chest with a balloon of light. A rush flew down Frank’s spine, and he grinned looking down to see Grace laughing.

“That was _awesome_!” she shouted. Her smile would have been infectious if Frank wasn’t already beaming. “Let’s do it again!”

“Okay,” Frank agreed, and helped her aim again, this time for a Drac on the hillside who was holding up a white gun in their direction. The blasters were constructed so that their beams of light could travel for much greater distances than normal projectiles, and he wasn’t about to chance a singed ear. Together they managed to knock down a good ten Dracs who were trying to get the jump on them. Frank was just aiming the bazooka again when Grace yelped and disappeared under Jet’s arm.

Frank opened his mouth to protest, but Jet tugged at the bazooka as Kobra pulled him down. He was shoved, bodily, into his seat while Kobra and Jet worked above him to somehow manage to get the roof back in place. By the time they sat back down, Frank could see that Kobra’s face was streaked with sweat that he wasn’t bothering to wipe off. His bandana was askew, and as he moved back into his seat, Frank snagged it with a finger and tugged it back into place. He could see Jet’s curls sticking to his forehead, and it was wet along the sides of his face. His own hair was damp, and he ran a hand through it.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Korse fell back,” Jet said. He wasn’t looking at Frank, but at the landscape roaring by, eyes focused and expression grim. Despite the heat, both he and Kobra were close to white.

Frank primed his gun, swiping the back of his arm across his forehead in a vain attempt to clear it of sweat. “And the road’s about to turn past these hills?”

Kobra coughed. “Maybe if we get out of the car...”

“What’s that gonna do?” Party muttered. “Then the AM will just be stuck back here. Korse’ll probably take it, and then we won’t have any means of getting back.”

“But if their cars are across the road...” Kobra’s eyes peeked out from behind the sunglasses sliding down his nose. They were wide, his pupils pinpricks because of the light.

“They won’t scare,” Jet added. “No use playing chicken. They’ll just sit there in the middle of the goddamn road and let us run our noses straight into them. We won’t have a car then, either.”

“I fucking know, okay?” Party snapped. His hands tightened their grip on the wheel, knuckles white beneath his slight tan. “Just trust me.”

Frank glanced down at Grace, who was partially hidden under Jet’s arm. Her eyes were wide in her face. Jet was straining his neck, probably to communicate with Kobra who’d slumped back in his chair in the front. Frank guessed that they could see each other in their side mirrors. “Okay,” he said, when it didn’t look like either Kobra or Jet were going to say anything. “What do you want us to do?”

“Hold on,” Party said, through gritted teeth. They were approaching a curve in the road, and Party took the turn as quickly as he could, hands and feet moving quickly and smoothly shifting the gears as the car skidded across the dusty pavement. It gripped the concrete once they were mostly straight, and then he was turning again, around the final corner. But instead of aiming the car so that it would end up on the pavement, Party twisted the wheel deftly. The car skipped over the edge of the road and ran over a few short bushes as Party drove the Trans AM right onto the dirt shoulder.

The car slipped on the surface, not finding enough traction on the frictionless surface, but Party worked the brake, holding the wheel steady. Everyone held their breath, stiff in their seats, hands gripping any available surface as Party held the car in line. The road tweaked at a slight angle and as they came around the edge of the hill, the barricade slid into view: two black BLI cars stretched across the road with a handful of bikes in the middle. Time seemed to slow down as they passed the few feet separating them and the cars.

Party gunned the gas down, shoving the car into its highest gear. Frank could see the Drac’s masks, and he imagined the dead faces behind them widening with surprise as they shot past the cars, mere inches between the side mirror of the Trans AM and the black hoods. The Dracs hadn’t even thought to cover the dirt expanse between the road and the miniature cliff to their right.

Party held their acceleration steady for a minute until they were out in the open. He twitched his head to glance in the rearview mirror, and his hands tightened on the wheel. It was the only warning they got before he slammed his foot on the brakes.

Frank barely had enough time to curl his arms around his head when the direction of the car stopping contradicted with his body’s current motion. He was propelled forward into the back of Party’s seat, clipping his head on its corner. Stars burst into life behind his eyes, accompanied by loud thuds that made Frank’s head pound for a second. He sat back in his seat, shaking life back into his brain until he could see mostly straight again.

Without taking time to assess the situation that he was about to jump into, he leapt out of the car. He made sure that the door closed behind him so Grace, huddling between the seats, would be vaguely protected from the fire flying from blaster to blaster.

Frank spotted a beam coming split seconds before it struck him, and dove beneath it. He stretched his arms out, landing on his hands and tucking the rest of his body into a somersault that ended with him on his feet. His gun had been in his hand when he’d leaped, and he primed it while he turned, trying to spot where he’d be most needed. On his way around, he spotted Party punching one Drac in the face, red bandana up over his nose. His goggles were covering his eyes, and his red hair was bunched up around the strap, a few strands loose over his eyes that moved when he shoved his body behind his fist. Kobra was tapping things on the glove he was wearing on his right hand, which was gripped around the neck of a Drac. Jet was behind Kobra, struggling against a handful of Dracs who seemed to have inexplicably leapt on him. He had his gun in his hand, and was firing, arms working to fend off their attacks as they kicked and punched.

He didn’t have enough time to wonder about their erratic behaviour, so different from the mindless pointing and shooting routine they were generally prone to follow, because a second wave of the things were coming up from behind. Frank finished pivoting around, shooting the moment his back was facing the other Killjoys. Party and Kobra would help Jet once they’d taken care of their Dracs, and if nobody did anything about it, the miniature sea of whites would be upon them. He shot almost without thinking, and definitely without consciously aiming, relying on his instincts to guide him. He gunned down as many Dracs as he could before he had to re-prime his gun, and then they were there, leaping on him like they _knew_ their bodies could be used as weapons. That was a fucking Scarecrow mentality, the idea that they could use more than their guns to take down enemies. How had these Dracs learned it?

One Drac was generally heavy enough to wind a person, because they were all muscle and no brain. The force of the impact of the three Dracs who jumped on top of each other and on Frank crushed all of the air from Frank’s lungs. He couldn’t move, could barely squeak air in. Under the bodies, he couldn’t even _see_. Cloth pressed into his nose, the unmoving Dracs dead weight above him as he strained to get his legs underneath him. It felt like he was drowning, but the water was an ocean of fucking stupid whales. He could hear the vague sounds of those recently winded beneath the sharp whine of the BLI blasters.

When Frank pushed up as hard as he could, the Dracs flew off him, apparently unable to regain their balance after he’d thrown them. He shot all three of them, gulping for the precious air he’d been deprived of under the pile and leaning over, hands on his knees.

They were acting so strange, like they’d tried to learn some new tactics, but hadn’t learned what to do following their new attacks. They also hadn’t gotten the memo on friendly fire and how jumping on your peers and knocking the breath out of them during a fight was generally considered to be a Bad Idea in most circles. Maybe the Dracs had thought they were helping. If they could think.

Before he had time to properly catch his breath and help the others out, something grabbed him from behind, hauling him off the desert floor. The grip around his neck was strong, and he struggled against it. When he tried to break free, by smashing his head back into the Drac’s face, his head just ended up lolling back onto a shoulder. His vision started to darken at the edges, and he gasped, hands scrabbling against the arm at his throat. He kicked back with his feet as hard as he could manage in his oxygen-deprived state, and felt a satisfying crunch of heel-on-knee. Everything went gold before the arm fell away, and Frank tumbled forward. His hands couldn’t support him, and he collapsed onto his elbows, forehead pressed into the dirt.

He didn’t have enough air to close his hands around his gun, so he just shoved his bandana away from his face with the edge of a hand that was shaking too badly to do anything. He coughed up what felt like both of his lungs into the empty floor of the desert, eyes squeezed tight. He couldn’t even stop to remember that he hadn’t killed the Drac, it could be shooting him. He didn’t even care: all he wanted to do was breathe without feeling like he was inhaling a million daggers.

The sounds of fighting faded away with the dull _thud_ of a body hitting the floor. Frank struggled to think about his breathing, until he felt like he had a firm grip on what it was, _in and out and in and out_. He pushed himself up to his knees and looked around through his watering eyes. The landscape was a graveyard of Dracs: unmoving, masked lumps in the middle of which he could see Party Poison crouching, hands on his thighs. The air was startlingly quiet, a heavy blanket of silence after the battle and gunfire. Frank could only hear the ragged breath of his fellow Killjoys and the low whistle of the land breathing. The wind picked up, caressing his face and tugging at his hair.

“What the fuck,” Jet croaked through the noiselessness of the world.

Frank heaved in a breath. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and blotted his eyes into the dusty bandana around his neck. He let it fall after he was done, because he couldn’t stand to have it over his mouth anymore, could barely stand having it around his neck.

Something crunched near him, soles of boots grinding the desert down until it was nothing. He looked up past the tall black boots and red leather to see Kobra’s arm reaching down. His eyes were dark, and almost unreadable in his face, nose solid and strong like the curve of his jaw which was still hidden beneath his yellow bandana. 

Kobra twitched the tips of his fingers. Frank coaxed his body into motion, like a human would do, stretching his own hand up. Kobra tightened his hand around Frank’s, using all the strength contained within his wiry limbs to haul Frank to his feet. He didn’t let go right away, gripping Frank’s right hand with his. Frank could see lines digging into the skin of Kobra’s forearm where his jacket was unzipped at the side, the sleeve pushed up to his elbow.

Frank swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry as his thumb felt the web of Kobra’s hand where the glove had pushed in and burned. He’d discarded the thing: Frank could see it out of the corner of his eye, lying next to the Drac who’d tried to smother Frank.

He didn’t say anything, just grimaced, turning away as he let Kobra’s hand fall. Kobra was silent, too. Frank heard him sniff, a breath of air shuddering somewhere in the depths of his lungs.

In the distance, the sun was trying to set among the cragged lips of the hills. As it bathed everything in a warm orange glow, Frank looked back over his shoulder at Kobra. His eyes were closed, face turned away from the wind. Frank watched as his eyebrows drew together momentarily before he yanked at his bandana so he could breathe from mouth. His face was turned away from the hills, his eyes were bathed in shadows. When they flickered open and glanced over Frank, their edges barely glinted in the light of the setting sun. Confusion and fatigue were brushed over the lines of his face, the slack skin around his mouth as he breathed, the flickering shine of his irises, the tilt of his head.

Kobra blinked slowly, savoring the moment when his eyes were closed as his hair flew out from his head like a banner, catching on the edges of the wind. When he opened his eyes again, meeting Frank’s, his throat tightened. He had to turn away from the broken edges he could see lurking there. They looked like they might be sharp enough to cut.

Frank tucked his hands beneath the bandana that was closing in around his neck, protecting his fingers as well as his throat. He closed his eyes, relishing in the feeling of air hitting his neck, wafting over his pulse and curling around the edges of his hair strewn around his head. They were caught around the edges of the sunglasses that he’d shoved up into his hair, and in the collar of his vest, but he couldn’t bring himself to move his hands any more.

He took in a deep breath, feeling the way it burned down his throat with a wince. He didn’t know what to make of the behaviour of the Dracs they’d just faced, so he settled for letting his breath escape through the open edges of his mouth.

When he opened his eyes again, he could see that Party Poison had risen to his feet and was taking off his goggles, shifting from foot to foot in the wind and the bodies. His hands went up to his bandana, which he pulled down past his chin. His eyes squinted past the red hair falling down over his forehead, and his nose was wrinkled up, mouth fallen open as he breathed hard. There was a line of red caked from his ear to the middle of his throat, crackling from the heat and the wind. Frank vaguely wondered when he’d gotten injured.

Jet Star was standing beside Party, bathed from behind in orange. He was glowing around the edges like something ethereal, an image that was barely ruined by his mass of hair blowing into his face. He glanced over at Party, and replaced his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose.

Party nodded, swaying from side to side as he got his breathing under control. His eyes darted over to catch Frank’s, brown-green irises glinting in the half light, narrowed around the edges in the same way that Kobra’s had been. He stopped moving as Frank watched, pausing for a second in the moment. He blinked and swallowed, and Frank nodded in response. Party’s his mouth fell open again for a second, gulping in air and helping him ground himself.

When Frank glanced at Kobra, his eyes were hard again. Shields up. Ready. He tilted his head in what was his version of a nod when he met Frank’s look, eyelids falling half closed before opening wide again. Frank let go of his bandana, clearing his throat as the material touched where he knew bruises were going to show tomorrow.

He turned back to Party, who had his goggles back on, obscuring his eyes from view. Grace was still back in the car, hopefully in one piece. After that fight, all Frank wanted to do was lie down, but he knew they had to keep moving, had to hide the car and find a place to hide themselves during the night.

Party tugged his bandana back up so it was sitting over his nose, protecting his airways from the debris in the air, checking that everyone else was doing the same.

“Let’s go.”

**Chapter 3**

Frank’s boots scuffed against the unyielding floor of the desert. Within the still-warm leather casings, his feet were aching. He could feel every step thudding from his heel up his spine, and he usually liked walking, but right now he _hated_ it. He hated the stupid desert, and the way that there was barely any light left in the sky, so he could barely see where he was putting his foot down, and he especially hated the fucking Better Living Industries for doing this to him.

Party Poison had driven them past the dead Dracs and through the winding road they’d ended up on. It was the road Frank liked to call “The Outer Limit”, because it cut exclusively through Zones five and six, and barely crossed paths with The Zone Connector and its brethren. Instead of heading towards Battery City, they’d been forced to veer away when Korse had blocked the roads. There was another road that they could use to get back to the diner, but it was a day’s drive at the very least, and they didn’t have enough daylight to make it there, not to mention gas.

“There are gas stations out here,” Kobra had said while he fiddled with the dials on the radio.

“Nobody lives out here, Mikey,” Party’d snapped, eyes dark in the fading blue of the sky. “What the fuck use is a gas station if there’s nobody to man it?”

“I fucking _know_ ,” Kobra had muttered. Frank and Jet had avoided looking at each other. Party insisted that they use their code names at all times, even though they all knew Frank’s name. Grace seemed to be exempt from the rule, because she didn’t have a codename of her own. So when Party slipped, it meant he wasn’t thinking straight. “You think I’m an idiot? Listen,” Kobra’d said, slumping back in his seat when the radio spat nothing but static back at him. “There’s some kind of fucking dampener out here. Air’s crackles and shit, Party. But I think I remember some stuff from that ghoul we captured, back at the beginning. Siphoning stuff. Gas station secrets, if you will.”

“But,” Party’d said, “gas doesn’t come out here.”

“It fucking does is what I’m saying,” Kobra’d snapped. “Would you sit your head on right and listen to me for once? If we find a station, we can fix it ourselves. We just need to get Dr. D on the radio and get some clear directions. Lay down our coordinates. Get some fucking help. So we’ll just hide the car for tonight and drive to one in the morning.”

“You know how to do that?” Party had asked, after a moment. “You sure it was gas?”

“No, I learned how to siphon dust. Of course I’m sure.”

“It’s the cameras,” Jet had said. “Laying down the static. We get past those, out into the edges of six, we might catch D’s tail.”

“Have to carry all of our stuff,” Party had muttered.

“It’s the only way,” Kobra had said.

Frank cursed when he tripped over a rock. It wasn’t bad enough that the light was fading, or that they’d walked for ages after passing the goddamn security cameras swiveling on their labeled stems, but he could barely see through his rebreather during the day, let alone the late evening.

And he was getting cold.

“Can’t see shit!” he called, projecting his voice in the direction he hoped Party and Kobra were in. Jet and Grace were following behind him. He could hear the crunch of Jet’s boots on the ground. Grace had walked for a good while on her own, but it was late and she was young, so some twenty minutes after they’d passed the cameras, Jet had hoisted her up onto his back, where she’d probably fallen asleep.

They probably didn’t even need their rebreathers this far out but Party had insisted, for the sakes of their identities at least, that their faces not be caught on camera. Grace wouldn’t be in the BLI database he’d said so she’d just covered her face with Jet’s bandana, looking every bit a Killjoy with her helmet on and her eyes wide. She had a belt of bottle caps that she’d collected at some point, and colour on every end.

“You’re a fucking baby!” Kobra’s voice finally echoed back.

Behind Frank, Jet Star snickered, face still hidden behind his helmet. “Fuck you all,” Frank said. “Fuck BLI, fuck the fucking desert, fuck the ow!” He hopped away from whatever he’d run into, and stomped his injured foot back on the ground. “Fuck this!” he shouted. “I’m done! We’re stopping.”

“Just a little further,” Party called.

Frank tore his rebreather from his head and tugged down his bandana. “No!” he yelled, and sat down. “Leave me alone to die for all I care, I’m not walking another goddamn inch.”

Jet lowered Grace to the ground and took off his helmet with a groan. “Thank fuck,” he breathed. “She’s a lot heavier than she looks.” He rubbed his forehead on his forearm, and took off his jacket, tucking it around Grace. He left her helmet on, probably for the warmth, and sat down so that his feet were touching Frank’s.

“If I don’t wake up,” Frank moaned, inspecting the weird orange cone he’d tripped over before stretching out on his back on the ground, “you can just dig me a grave right here. Write on it, ‘ _Killed by sadomasochists Party Poison and Kobra Kid, too fucking stubborn to put their real names on their best friend’s epitaph, what the fuck._ ’ Word for word.”

Jet nodded. “Cool,” he said.

Frank yelped when a foot connected with his side.

“Best friend,” Kobra scoffed, sitting on Frank’s stomach. He ignored Frank’s squeak and flailing arms. “My ass.”

“Fuck off, stickman,” Frank gasped. “God, you’re a heavy motherfucker. Your ass is like glass.”

“Your stomach is like a pillow,” Kobra mused. “A really big, fluffy pillow. It’s awesome.”

“Augh,” Frank moaned. “Fuck you.”

“Classy,” Kobra said. “You treat all your dates like this?”

“You sit on all of yours?”

Kobra looked down to Frank. His hair had mostly been pushed back, but a few sweaty strands were sticking to his expressionless face. “Yes,” he said. “Don’t you?”

Frank blinked, and his mouth twisted up. “Well,” he said. “You _could_ say that.”

Kobra thought for a second, and punched Frank in the shoulder before getting off. “You’re disgusting.”

“You’re abusive,” Frank said, pushing himself into a sitting position. “What we have is not a healthy relationship, I hope you know.”

“If by that you mean that you often make me feel like throwing up,” Kobra muttered, crawling over to the transmitter he’d carried out here. He started fiddling with the front until the red numbers changed. “Then totally.”

Something fell with a crash a few feet away from them, and after a low “Fuck”, Party’s face flickered into view. He was holding a lighter they’d found in the abandoned gas station up to a piece of paper. Apparently he’d been collecting scraps of wood while they walked because he was crouched in front of a sizable pile of debris.

It took him a few tries, but after a few more curses, he managed to light the heap on fire. By the time he’d finished muttering under his breath about his thumb the fire was roaring. Frank and Jet had unpacked their rations from the bag they’d brought them in: cans of kibble and bottled water. Kobra muttered something under his breath and snatched a can of food, sitting away from the radio. He shoved his spoon in his mouth, clearly angry about his lack of progress with the machine.

The fire grew in front of them, a beacon of warmth and safety. Party shuffled over to the radio and got down on his knees. It was their specially tinkered-with long-distance transmitter. It had some kind of signal booster attached to the actual radio part, which required a carrying case. Frank had tried to take it out once, and Kobra had practically jumped on him, saying something under his breath about wires and how the signal booster was a delicate device. Some shit like that, anyway. The signal booster mostly looked like a hastily taped together series of small radios, but whatever. Kobra knew what he was doing, he had a brain wired like a microchip.

Party ignored the food that was sitting next to him on the floor, fingers moving the dials and adjusting the various sliders on the signal booster. Frank twisted his mouth to the side and took a spoonful of food before picking up Party’s can. He opened it, and held it out. “Kibble,” he said.

Party’s forehead was creased with a frown, and he barely glanced up for a moment. “We’re far enough out,” he said to Kobra. “It should be working. The light says there’s a signal.”

Kobra muttered something unintelligible into his can. His face was dark even though the fire was casting light over all of them.

“New batteries?” Party asked. “I replaced it back at the car, when we parked at the station. Lights are all on.”

“Don’t mean anything,” Kobra said. “Dr. D might not be looking. Fuckin’ headcase with his damn pirate transmissions. Nobody listens at night, anyway.”

“He’s probably sleeping,” Jet said.

“But his radio’s always on,” Party said. “He sleeps at his desk sometimes, gets Tommy and Show to watch the shit anyhow.”

“Kibble,” Frank repeated. He waved the can at Party, and when the man didn’t look up, he nudged his shoulder with the edge of the tin.

Party just twitched his shoulder, ignoring the can and flicking switches. “Fuckin’ Show Pony,” he muttered. “Probably fast asleep. On the job, too.”

“Dr. D should fire him, get him to do some goddamn work for once,” Kobra said. He cleaned out his can and threw it at the fire. It sailed in an arc over Party’s head before hitting the desert with a hollow _thwack_.

“Party,” Frank snapped. When Party ignored him, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear instead of paying attention, Frank sighed. “Kobra, fucking tell him to eat,” he said, but Kobra was down next to the radio now too, eyes narrow and focused. Fuck, the brothers were always in off in their own world.

What could he call them to get them to pay attention? Kobra by his real name, maybe. Party...Frank remembered that, at some point, Kobra had let a nickname slip. When they’d just recovered Party from Korse’s clutches.

“Mikey,” he said, sighing when the name just made Kobra twitch. He dug through his memories, and came up with: “Gee.”

There was suddenly silence, and aside from the crackles of the fire, nobody spoke for a moment. Party abandoned the dials and he slowly turned his face towards Frank. His eyes were carefully blank, hand twitching towards the gun at his hip. “What did you say?” he asked, voice dangerously low.

Frank swallowed, but motioned with the can in his hand. “I called you by your fucking nickname so you’d stop fucking around with that thing and eat some goddamned food, because you’re already skinny as fuck, and--”

“Don’t,” Party hissed, angling his body towards Frank and edging closer, “you _ever_ use that name.”

“I,” Frank said, blinking. He put his can down and tried to scramble away but before he could, Party’s hand was surrounding his ankle with a viselike grip. “Fuck, Party, I --”

Party wasn’t breathing now, Frank was sure of it. “You,” he growled, “need to learn to shut your fucking mouth. Where the _fuck_ did you hear my name?”

“I don’t even know it! Your whole name, I mean, I just, the nickname, that’s all! I don’t even know what it stands for.” Frank’s eyes were wide, he was sure of it, but Party was holding onto both of his legs, and the rest of his body was frozen. “I, fine, I heard it from Kobra, when you, when we...rescued you from that stupid cabin! He let it slip, and I...” He swallowed at the dead look in Party’s eyes. “We just walked a thousand miles, Party. You need to eat. And sleep. We don’t know what’s going to hit us tomorrow, and you’re our _leader_. Shit. I’m sorry, okay?”

Party’s eyes narrowed. “You’re... _sorry_. For what, Frank? For, oh, I don’t know, complaining all the goddamned time? For dragging your feet? Or, wait. Maybe it’s for wasting my precious fucking time when I could be sending out an SOS to Dr. D? So we can, you know, make it back to the diner _alive_? That what you’re sorry for?”

Frank sat up. He’d fallen back when he had tried to escape, but fine. If Party wanted to hold onto his legs then he’d just have to get up in his face. “I’m _sorry_ ,” he snapped when they were inches away, “for using your _shitty_ nickname to try and get you to eat. Christ. It’s like you don’t understand how important you are, or that we _need_ you to be more than skin and bones. Kobra can work the radio while you eat, which wastes no time because he’s some kind of genius with tech. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I should be asking you that,” Party muttered. His hands flexed around Frank’s ankles. “Why won’t you shoot Korse, Frank?”

Jet cleared his throat. Frank started: he’d forgotten that the others were there. “Guys, why don’t we --”

“No,” Party snapped. “I want to know. I trust the guy with my life, I should get some reassurance that he’s going to have my back, right?”

“I don’t --” Frank said, but Party moved closer, eyes glinting.

“That’s right, Frank,” he said. “You _don’t_. You never do, at least not when Korse is around. When we were driving earlier this morning, just before that barricade, you were face to fucking face with the guy who’s been orchestrating the collective nightmare we’ve been living for the past decade, and what, you can’t pull the trigger? I don’t get it,” he said, “because I goddamn _trusted_ you. With my _life_.”

There was a lump somewhere in Frank’s throat that he swallowed down. “You said,” he whispered, “you _said_ I didn’t need to tell you, that you...” He gritted his teeth together, determined not to cry. The scar on his neck was burning, prickling, even though it wasn’t.

“That was before all of this,” Party muttered. “Why the fuck did you freeze up?”

“The sun was in my --” Frank tried, but Party growled and pulled out his gun.

“Bullshit,” he said.

“Party,” Kobra said, in the background. He sounded shocked, but at least his heart was probably still working. Frank’s was frozen somewhere between a beat and a thud, stuck in his chest like a lump of ice.

“Because he,” Frank croaked. His face twisted up, and his throat closed around his answer. “I...”

“He what?” Party asked, almost shouting now as he leaned forward, the nose of his gun heating up a circle where it was pressed into Frank’s chest, right above his heart. The gun shifted every time his heart pounded, like it was trying to break free but just couldn’t. Frank fell back again, not in an attempt to get away but because he was trying not to shake too badly.

“Party. Stop,” Kobra pleaded.

Frank could almost see him moving, but his eyes couldn’t move from Party. “Sit the fuck down, Mikey,” Party snarled. “I want to hear him say it.”

“It’s not a good idea,” Jet said, his voice wavering on the words. “If Ghoul’s suffered some kind of trauma, this is probably a fucking trigger, Party. Cut it out.”

“If you move,” Party growled, eyes not moving from Frank, “I’ll shoot you in the goddamn leg. Shut the fuck up.” He ground his teeth together as Jet obeyed. “Now. What did Korse do, Frank? Please,” he said, eyes darkening in their sockets. “Enlighten us.”

Frank heaved in a breath. His arms were burning from the way they were holding him up, but he leaned closer, pressing his chest into the gun. “Just shoot me,” he said. “It’d make your life a whole lot easier.” He snorted a laugh that he didn’t feel. “You wouldn’t have to wonder whether I’m a liability, or make sure that I’m covering you, even though I always do. Korse isn’t even the source of your problems. You think he’s a nuisance, try his fucking _bosses_ ,” he spat, eyes crashing against Party’s like stone on stone. “You wanna know why I can’t shoot him? Because he’s playing _mind games_ with us. The only thing he’s good for is meddling with peoples’ fucking brains. He goes in there, and he messes shit up, and then he laughs while you cry. That’s it. He isn’t orchestrating the pills, he isn’t some kind of mastermind, he just takes people and plays with them. Like they’re _toys_.”

“What,” Party said, “did. He. Do.”

“He watched,” Frank snapped, shouting now even though he was less than a foot away from Party’s blankly angry face. He shoved himself up into a sitting position, relishing the feel of the gun’s nose pointed at his heart. “He watched and he laughed and he flashed that stupid grin. And every time I see him, it’s all I can do to stay on my two fucking feet because I’m not in the desert or in the car or wherever the fuck anymore, I’m back in that white fucking room, getting the shit beat out of me, over and over and over again. And he’s standing above me, white all to hell, grinning.” He stopped then, struggling to stay calm, to keep from hyperventilating. “That’s why I freeze up,” he said, voice breaking on the last syllable. He felt hoarse, like he’d been screaming, like his guts were spilling out onto the ground. “Because after a while, shit like that kind of gets to you. I’ve...I’ve fucking _tried_ , so goddamn hard to shoot him, you don’t think I have? My hands won’t _move_ on the trigger when he’s there, my body won’t...won’t _work_ , it just, all it can remember is curling up into a ball around broken fucking ribs and broken arms and I’m, I’m broken, okay? I _get_ it. I _know_ I’m a lost fucking cause. So go ahead.” He leaned back finally, falling onto his elbows, away from the gun. He was breathing hard now, and tears were leaking from the corners of his eyes, dripping down to the line of his jaw. He tilted his chin up and didn’t move to wipe them away. “Shoot me. Put me out of my goddamn misery. Save yourself a little bit of worry about me having your back. I fucking _dare_ you.”

Party’s eyes flickered, still dark at their core. He didn’t say anything: just pulled away his gun, released Frank’s legs, and snatched a can of kibble before he pushed himself to his feet and walked away.

The other two were quiet as Frank sat back up. He wasn’t hungry anymore. He wasn’t ever hungry for kibble, but he picked up the can and shoved his spoon into his mouth.

“Fuck,” Kobra muttered. He didn’t look at Frank, but he got to his feet and stalked after Party, hands deep in his pockets.

“That was a really shitty thing for him to do,” Jet said. “I freeze up, too. When he...Party...when he’s like that. I can’t...sorry.”

“Whatever,” Frank muttered.

“My wife, when she,” Jet said. “She came back one day, and she just told me. Everything. She’d walked around, bubbly and smiling so they’d let her into the rooms, and she...said they were training Crows in C. I thought that was just absurd. C building, right? It’s where they make pills. Crows and Dracs stay in A, fuck knows what they do in B, but shit stays where it’s supposed to.”

Frank chewed on his kibble. Swallowing was painful, but he shoved as much food as he could in his mouth and set the can down. “Doesn’t though,” he said, once he’d finished. “Shit goes all over.”

“Were you, like.” Jet paused, searching for the word. “A candidate?”

Frank sniffed, and rubbed the heel of his hand into his eyes. “Insurgent.”

Jet mulled that over for a minute, glancing over Grace before he returned his gaze to Frank. “When we met you,” he said. “Like that?”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “I was just doing dumb shit. Vandalizing, whatever. Not taking the pills, and I didn’t know the code for backup, so when I knocked out the first Drac, the second called, and some Crows came over. I thought they were just different Dracs, but...shit. They’re _strong_. I didn’t know what to expect, they took me out within seconds. Next thing I know...” He waved his hand, and fell silent

“White rooms,” Jet said.

Frank nodded. He had a sudden urge to tuck his legs up to his chest, to protect his heart. “Fucking white,” he said, curling up into a ball. His hands were warm where they cupped around his calves.

Jet ran a hand through his hair. “You should tell Party,” he said. “Something messed him up before he came out here. I think...he needs it.”

“I’m never enough,” Frank muttered. “The past isn’t supposed to matter out here. Fuck.”

“Without it, you wouldn’t be you,” Jet said, and when Frank looked at him, there was a hint of a smile on his face. “We would have lost a mountain of battles without you, y’know? You and your lightning fingers. Before you came along, there was Party and Kobra, with me on the side, and when you slipped in, everything just...it was right. I bet that’s why he’s so scared you’ll turn on us. You’d probably win.”

Frank’s blush was probably hidden by the fire, but he rubbed the back of his neck anyway. “I’m not that good of a shot,” he murmured.

Jet shrugged. “You make people happy, too. Before it was all, Kobra sad about Thriller, Party sad about having nobody, me sad about my wife, Grace sad because her doll broke, nobody would take her seriously, on and on. And then you came, and...Kobra’s still sad, but he has someone to be sad on now. Grace fucking beams when she looks at you, and Party...”

“He was a grumpy bastard before you came and he’s an asshole of a grumpy bastard now,” Kobra said, from behind Frank where he’d apparently snuck up. Frank glanced at him and Kobra shot him a tentative grin. “But he’s a sorry asshole grumpy bastard,” he finished. He punched Party in the shoulder, hard, before turning back to Frank. “Really though, huge asshole.”

“You could have said,” Party muttered, rubbing his shoulder and shooting Kobra a glare. “I would have believed you.”

“Really, _really_ not why I didn’t say,” Frank said. He stood up, feeling like he needed to be on two feet for this. “I’m pretty sure nobody would make up this kind of story, because nobody...nobody even fucking knows any of this shit exists.”

“Okay,” Party muttered.

Frank stared, and laughed, the sound hollow in his chest. “You’re so fucking spoiled out here, you know? With your missions and your vendetta. BLI isn’t breathing down your neck, telling you what to do, forcing you to act in any way. They aren’t snatching you up and cutting into you so deep that you get to see what your bones look like. You take this whole fucking _world_ for granted, Party Poison. You don’t get it.”

When Kobra punched Party’s arm again, Party scowled. “Fine. So I like the desert. It’s because I never felt at home in the City. Never...fit their pills. And I thought I needed more, that I wasn’t good enough, so I did. I stole some from the factory they made me work at, took them and swallowed as many as I could. My heart stopped for a little while, Thriller said, that I probably would have died because of them. Mikey thought he’d killed me. So this desert is kind of a big deal for me. And living...you don’t know what it’s like until you’ve died.”

“This isn’t a fucking contest,” Frank spat. “Okay? I don’t want to compete for worst history, I don’t want you shoving your sob story up in my face. I don’t fucking care what happened to you. I have enough trouble living with my own past.”

“I want,” Party said, mouth working to get words out before he set his jaw, “I want to _help_. I _want to know_ what happened to you, Frank. You’re the one who doesn’t trust _me_. Do you have an idea how much that fucking hurts?”

“Hurts? _You_?” Frank shook his head. “Fuck off. I don’t want to share what happened because I don’t want your goddamned pity.”

“That’s enough,” Kobra snapped. “Both of you, just stop. We’re all tragic, we’ve all fucked up, and that’s why we’re here, okay? So do whatever it is you do when you two kiss and make up, because Korse is coming after us and we might not even live to see the light of day.” He folded his arms across his chest. “And you’re clearly equally messed up, so just...”

Party scowled. “I...fine. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I cared.”

“That’s the shittiest apology I’ve ever heard,” Kobra muttered. “It doesn’t count. Do it again.”

“Fuck, what do you want me to say?” Party asked.

Kobra raised an eyebrow.

“We haven’t,” Party said, voice trailing off.

Kobra raised his other eyebrow.

“Fine,” Party spat. “Fine. I...I’m sorry, Frank. Okay? I’m sorry. Sorry I made you tell me shit you didn’t want to. You shouldn’t have to. I just, I get...protective.”

“Really?” Frank asked. “And that’s why you shoved your gun in my chest.”

“No,” Party sighed, “Just, shut the fuck up and listen, okay? I’m trying to apologize, here.”

“Well, you’re really shitty at it,” Frank muttered, but shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Fine, yes. I’m shitty at apologizing. You’ve found me out. I’m also bad at letting things go, and, shit, I just want to help everybody, and I _can’t_. I can’t do anything remotely perfectly, and I just. I really.” Party shifted his weight and cleared his throat. “I really...really like you, okay? Like.” He was definitely red now, it wasn’t just Frank and it wasn’t just the slowly dying fire. “Like I...I love you. And it hurts, sometimes, and not in, like, the way me punching Kobra is going to hurt, but. It still does. I can see you in pain, and there isn’t anything I can do to help, and I feel so helpless.”

Frank was red by now, too. “Well,” he muttered, “good. Because I fucking love you, too.”

Kobra clapped his hands together. “Great,” he said. “All made up.”

“Hey,” Jet said, “that was beautiful and all, but weren’t the lights on this thing red just a minute ago?”

Everyone moved: Kobra squawking and throwing himself at the radio, fiddling with dials, Party Poison picking up the speaking piece and talking into it. Frank knelt down in front of the box, and snapped his fingers. “It’s this,” he said. “You’ve turned this off.” He tapped a light and flicked a switch, and Party’s face broke into a grin.

“Shit,” Party said, at the same time as Kobra muttered “Fucking finally.”

 _“Mghn,”_ someone mumbled. _“It’s the fucking Killjoys.”_

“You’re goddamned right it’s the fucking Killjoys,” Kobra spat, trying to snatch the speaker out of Party’s hand.

“Show Pony?” Party said, holding Kobra at bay for a second. “Hey. Korse is, like, right behind us. We’re fucking cornered out in the middle of Zone 6, and. We...we.” He looked up to Jet. “We were just out, getting parts. And we brought her with us, and they know.”

 _“What?”_ Show said, voice crackling. _“You brought a chick with you?”_

“Not,” Party said. “Not a chick. Grace.”

There was the sound of mild static, and then Show Pony was cursing. _“Fuck. Okay, we’re coming. Dr. D just woke up. Dracs flooded our fucking station earlier, and we had to relocate. We’ve been driving all day.”_

“We need gas,” Kobra said, and he took the receiver from Party. “We parked the car at an abandoned station, and we’re out in the middle of the desert, past the cams. It was the only place we could get a free signal.”

The line crackled. _“Past the cams?”_

“Yeah.”

_“Do you have your scrambler?”_

Kobra frowned. “I, uh. What?”

_“Fuck, Kobra. Your scrambler. The little...we put it on your radio. You’ve seen it, you’re not using it right now?”_

“I don’t...” Kobra looked up at Party helplessly. “I don’t know what that is.”

_“It’s the thing that keeps fucking BLI from hacking the channel, shit. Shit. I’m disconnecting. Don’t know if we can make it out to you, we’re probably going to be heading in the opposite direction.”_

“Fuck,” Kobra said, eyes wide with panic.

In the distance, a branch snapped.

“Fuck,” Kobra breathed. He shut the radio case and picked it up. He held his helmet under his arm, because it was too dark to walk safely with it on.

“Shit,” Party agreed.

Jet gathered Grace up in his arms and Frank just reached down to grab his rebreather.

“Let’s go,” Party said.

This trip through the desert, though it was almost pitch black, and Frank tripped over at least four roots, took a lot less time. It could have been because they were practically running flat-out. By the time they got back to the car, Frank could barely feel his feet, let alone see them.

Party fumbled in the glovebox for something while Jet tucked Grace into the backseat. “Shit, shit, shit,” Party muttered, coming up with a flare. “Start the car,” he said to Kobra, tossing him the keys. “Turn the fucking lights on.”

Kobra nodded. His helmet was still clutched tightly in his left hand when he emerged from the front seat.

Frank pulled his bandana up onto his face and pulled Fun Ghoul from her sheath. Jet had his helmet on and Frank frowned when he saw Party with his goggles on, but then Party struck the flare into life, and, well. Everything made more sense.

He had to squint through the light of the flare to see what Party was trying to catch a glimpse of in the distance, but all he could see was blinding white.

“Party,” Frank muttered, above the growl of the car. “Party.”

“Is that Show Pony?” Party asked. When he looked back at Frank, his hair pink in the bright light of the flare, Frank shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No.” 

“Drac,” Jet muttered from within his helmet.

“Just one?” Party asked. “It doesn’t make any sense. If they found our car, there would be...

He paused. The Trans AM’s door slammed and they all turned in unison to look at their rear, where the sound of bikes was barely hidden by the roar of the car.

“Grace!” Jet shouted. He was frozen for a second, watching the bikes leap from the road into the terrain, but pulled out his gun and darted in the direction the motorcycles were heading. Frank couldn’t see Grace, but at the edge of the horizon he could see the glimmers of the sun starting to rise.

“Fuck,” Party said. “Dracs are going after them. Shit. Shit. Okay, Kobra, Ghoul, cover our backs. Stay with the car.”

“Right,” Kobra said. He pulled on his helmet, and flipped the visor up. “Don’t get killed.”

Party scowled and held up his finger. “Dick.”

“You’re pretty incompetent,” Kobra said. “I’m just saying.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Party muttered. “Love you both.” He turned to leave, and Frank hesitated for a second before reaching for Party’s arm. He snagged the sleeve and Party stopped. Frank cleared his throat and pulled Party closer so he could press their lips together quickly, a moment of warmth and softness.

“Seriously, don’t die,” Frank whispered.

Party’s Adam's apple bobbed, and he nodded. He’d discarded his goggles in favor of his yellow mask. Frank reached up to touch it, adjusting the sit of it on Party’s nose. “Okay,” Party whispered, voice rough.

“Go,” Frank said.

“Yeah.”

“Meet us back here.”

“Right.”

Frank grinned and shoved at Party’s shoulder. “Go!”

“Right,” Party said, and jogged off after Jet and the Dracs.

Frank could still feel the edge of Party’s sleeve sending tingles his fingers long after Party had made a mostly-impressive leap over a bush, running away to hopefully bring Grace and Jet back in one piece.

“Dammit, Ghoul,” Kobra growled. He’d snapped his visor down and had his gun leveled at Frank’s head. “Duck,” Kobra said.

Frank primed Fun Ghoul and ducked a second before Kobra shot, and just like that, everything clicked back into place.

He was _ready_.

**Chapter 4**

The sky lightened as the sun coaxed itself up over the hills. Navy blushed pink and orange; light-blue followed, chasing the twinkly-eyed night down, down, down. Out in the desert this far, the blue of the sky was crisp overhead, lined with smog all round the edges.

Frank ducked down again, clipping the edge of the Trans AM’s side mirror with his shoulder. “Fuck,” he swore, clutching the spot. He gritted his teeth and swiped a hand across his forehead, but the side of his hand was just as wet as the skin on his face. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

It had already been an hour since Party, Jet and Grace had run off into the sparse shrubs. Frank and Kobra had been on their toes the whole time, keeping the Dracs at bay.

“No sign of Korse,” Kobra muttered from inside the car. He was trying to contact Dr. D again, crouched as far down as he could to avoid being shot. “No sign of a fucking signal. No fucking sign, fucking god _damnit_. Where _are_ they?”

“No idea,” Frank said, priming Fun Ghoul.

“Rhetorical fucking question,” Kobra snapped. “Shit. It’s all static. Why aren’t they _back_?”

“Stop asking if you don’t want me to answer,” Frank muttered. “Toss me my mask, would you?”

The green and purple rubber soared over his head and hit the dirt. As much as he hated sticking his face into the mask, he needed a breath of fresh air and the rebreather, when locked shut, could give him that for a moment or two before its recyclers kicked in. He tugged it over his sopping hair and held it in place, breathing deeply. The little engine hanging down from the ear whirred to life and shoved cold air into his face.

He breathed deeply, eyes fluttering shut in ecstasy. The air was cool and fresh, thanks to Kobra’s miracle tech. It used some kind of chemical to cool and clean the air that it pumped through. After a few minutes Frank’d start to taste metal at the back of his throat, but he didn’t need more time than that to get his head back on straight.

The door beside Frank eked open and Kobra slid out as Frank pushed his mask up to sit on top of his head. “Fuck, that’s good,” he breathed, leaning his head back on the tire well.

“No gas,” Kobra said. He pulled on his helmet too, but kept the visor up. Frank couldn’t see his eyes past the yellow sides, but he knew they were scanning the desert for any signs of life. “She’s completely empty.”

They’d killed what looked like the last Dracs twenty minutes ago now, if Frank’s inner clock was correct. The scumbags hadn’t even had enough time to call for backup.

“Do you think any more are coming?” Frank asked, trying to stifle the yawn that wanted to overtake him. After a sleepless night of walking, and with the adrenaline of the recent fight wearing off, Frank wasn’t actually sure he could stay awake without any MagJuice pumping through his veins.

Kobra grunted beside him. His hand was tensed around Kid, knuckles hidden beneath his gloves.

“I might fall asleep,” Frank murmured, feeling his eyes slip shut in the shade cast on his face by the rebreather. Kobra’s shoulder was bony but solid, so he leaned his head on it. “Just for a minute.”

Kobra didn’t say anything.

Or maybe he did. Frank couldn’t really hear him with all of the sleep he was catching up on. He was unconscious the second Kobra’s sticky jacket stuck to his face.

* * * *

Something wasn’t right.

Frank gasped for air, kicking above the surface of Party Poison’s eyes. “I was dreaming,” he said, voice spilling from between his lips. He could almost imagine the words spelling themselves in the air, bold white text on a blurry brown background. “That I was drowning.”

He tilted his head to the side, keeping his eyes on Party’s. “Something isn’t right,” he said.

“Frank?” Party asked.

“Are we alone?” Frank asked, searching inside the hazel specks to find the truth. He got the feeling like he was being watched, like someone was just behind him, peering over his shoulder.

“Are we supposed to be?” Party shot back.

It wasn’t a question.

“We are,” Frank said. “I am. There’s just me in here.”

“Lights in elevators,” Party murmured.

“What?” Frank asked, but shook his head. “No, just. Inside. My head. I can touch you, but I can’t bring you with me.”

“Are you leaving?”

That wasn’t a question either.

“Storm’s coming,” Frank said. His elbow was aching again. Broken bones and aging joints were supposed to be sensitive, pressure changes alerting the hyperaware nerves of changes in the air. He’d broken his ankle once, running from someone, and it hurt when it was about to rain.

His elbow was different.

“Good for the plants,” Party said.

“Not that kind of a storm,” Frank answered. He couldn’t look away from Party’s eyes. He was about to slip under again, was just fighting to stay afloat, keep his head above water. The dark was waiting below, cold and unfeeling and safe. “Funny.”

“Funny.”

“It’s hard,” Frank said, “when you’re swimming all the time. Some people can float. On their backs or whatever. But every time I try to do that, I just sink like a rock.”

“I can help you.”

Frank let out a sigh. “No. Nobody can help me.”

Party grimaced. “Well, it’s time, anyway.”

Frank frowned. “I don’t want to.”

“You won’t have to fight anymore.”

“But you won’t be there,” Frank muttered. “I just made room. If I leave, it’ll be empty again.”

“You’ll remember.”

“You won’t.”

“Will too.”

Frank grimaced. The pain shooting from his elbow was uncomfortable now. He could feel something hard beneath his legs. “Are we alone?” he asked again. The feeling was back. Someone else was there.

“Are you ready?”

Frank’s fingers twitched at his sides. “I...” He looked, once more, and sighed. “Yes.”

Party grinned, fierce and feral. “Good.” He pulled back his arm and slapped Frank hard in the face.

Frank sat up.

“Ow, motherfucker,” he said, voice thick with sleep.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

Frank had enough time to blink before he was being tugged close, face mushed into familiar blue leather. “Party?” he asked dumbly, wrapping his arms around the solid torso. “You’re back.”

“Shit, Frank, I thought.”

Frank didn’t relinquish his hold on Party when the man tried to tug away, just nestled his face into the warm fabric beneath him. “ _You_ thought, dickwad. _We_ thought. You’re too good to call us?”

Party huffed beneath his grip and Frank let go. “I thought you were _dead_ ,” he clarified. “Because you sleep like a rock.”

“Well,” Frank said, unable to resist tucking a strand of hair behind Party’s ear. He still had his yellow mask on, and his eyes were wide beneath it. “We thought you were dead too.”

Party shook his head. “Jet got a pack of ‘em, took a bunch out and got a bottle to the head. Kobra’s patching him up now, I think he’ll be fine. He won’t put his visor down, just keeps his eyes on Grace.”

“Grace?” Frank asked, adjusting his position when Party slumped down beside him. The red of his hair tickled Frank’s cheek when he laid his head on Frank’s shoulder.

“Fine,” Party said. “She was holding that doll when she went out, used it as a decoy. Hid in bushes, ducked ‘round trees. When we make it out of this, she’s gonna be a fuckin’ fabulous Killjoy.”

Frank’s throat tightened, but he didn’t say anything. His elbow was cupped in his right hand, but the action didn’t do anything to alleviate the pain and unease. “Right. You?”

“Okay,” Party murmured. “Tired.”

“Don’t fall asleep,” Frank said.

Party shifted on his shoulder, rubbing his head under Frank’s ear. “‘m not,” he mumbled.

Frank risked a glance over to him. He just...he wanted...everything. He wanted to curl up next to Party and never leave. Here on the floor of the desert, he wanted to pin Party’s hand down just to feel the shifting tendons and bones where his nerves were sharpest. He wanted to press their backs together, shoulder blade to ankle, a promise of safety. He wanted a grin from Party, hands running through his hair. He wanted everything to be okay.

But it wasn’t.

“Korse is coming,” Frank said finally. He couldn’t muster his voice up too far above a whisper, and had to look away from Party’s head when breathing started to hurt.

“Did the Dracs call for backup?” Party asked. He wasn’t moving, just running his hand down the arm Frank was hugging to his chest. He got down to the elbow, and even though his fingers were gentle, Frank couldn’t help the hiss that escaped through his clenched teeth. “They get you?”

Yes, Frank wanted to say. Instead he just shrugged. “Just an old battle wound,” he said in what he hoped was a flippant tone. He watched as Party’s fingers worked themselves beneath his, so it was his hand cupping Frank’s elbow. “They didn’t...they didn’t call.”

“You just know,” Party said. His voice was low, and Frank could feel his cheek moving with the words against his shoulder. He was quiet for a long minute and then he released Frank’s elbow and sat up. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Frank asked.

Party turned, eyes bright when they met Frank’s. “Okay. I still. Fuck, I still wanna know. So bad it hurts. But if you can’t, then...” He shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to live with that.”

Live. Right.

“Okay,” Frank said.

Party stretched then, his back arching until something cracked. “Korse is coming, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I got something for you, then,” Party said. His eyes were twinkling beneath his mask and he stood, reaching into the Trans AM that they were both leaning against.

Frank stood, catching sight of Kobra and Jet off to the side. Jet’s helmet was on, but his eyes were on Grace, who was fiddling with a little radio. Fuck knows where she’d got it from.

“Ah,” Party said, emerging from the car. He had something in his hand, a white box. “Found this at a dump a while back. Figured I’d save it for a special occasion.”

Frank blinked, and caught the box when Party tossed it at him. “Oh my god,” he breathed. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Party said. He tossed Frank a small silver lighter. “Thought you might like it.”

Frank’s fingers were almost shaking around the box as he opened it and tipped out a cigarette. The box was about half full, and he hadn’t felt so faint since the last time he’d got his hands on the things. “I don’t even know what to say,” he said, barely able to tuck the rest of the box inside his vest. He threw himself at Party, wrapping his arms around the man’s neck. His feet were hanging about an inch off the ground as Party chuckled into Frank’s ear, so Frank let go, sliding down until his toes touched down. “I love you so fucking much.”

Party’s smile was sad but big. He pressed his lips to Frank’s, pulling back after just a second. His hands had fallen somewhere around Frank’s waist, and they stayed there. Frank tilted his head forward so he could tuck his nose into the hollow between Party’s collarbones, breathing him in for a second.

“Fuck,” Party breathed above Frank. “I love you too.”

“Buncha girls,” Kobra announced, but he sidled up to them and wedged himself into their embrace.

Frank grumbled, but Jet came up behind him and wrapped his arms around all of them.

“What’s the plan?” he asked. His chin was propped up on Frank’s head, because he was tall as fuck. Well, compared to Frank, at least. Standing next to Cobra or Rip he was tiny.

“No plan,” Party sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a joy-drip right now.”

“AM’s outta gas,” Kobra muttered from where his face was mushed into the side of Frank’s. “We could leg it, but I don’t think we’d survive for too long. Night’s comin’.”

“No food, no water,” Party said.

“That settles that,” Kobra answered. “Hey, Gee. Remember when we saw Mad Gear live?”

“Yeah,” Party said.

“Good.” Kobra sniffed, and tugged away from them. “Keep fuckin’ remembering.”

“Why?” Party frowned, confusion flickering in his eyes.

Kobra shrugged. His face was already shut down. He pulled on his helmet and shuddered out a breath. “I hear a car.”

“This is it, huh?” Jet asked. He still had his helmet on, and Frank could see the hint of a bandage if he peered far enough around the side.

“It,” Party agreed.

They all stepped back. Jet shuffled over to Grace and whispered something in her ear. Her face lit up and she fiddled with her radio for a second before holding it up. Music filtered through the speakers, scratchy and distorted and awesome.

Frank punched Party on the shoulder. “See you on the other side.”

Party snorted. “Sure.”

“Fuck it,” Frank said, and shoved the cigarette he’d taken out ages ago into his mouth. He lit it, cupping his hand protectively around the end, and pulled air through the paper wrappings. His eyes almost rolled back in his head with the first blast of smoke into his lungs. He probably groaned, because Party was looking at him and adjusting his stance, but Frank couldn’t even bring himself to care. This was absolute fucking bliss. “Goddamn. That’s good.”

Party cleared his throat. “Back off the car, man. I don’t want her getting injured.”

“Fuck me,” Frank groaned again, blowing smoke away from himself. He pulled out Fun Ghoul and primed her, eyes finally focusing on the car that was quickly approaching. His senses were adjusting, muscles shifting and tensing, correcting his balance as he strolled up to stand beside Kobra.

Kobra punched the air a few times, fighting an invisible foe and slammed his visor down over his eyes. He was standing facing the sandy road they’d rolled up on until the Trans AM had run out of gas. The car was off to their left somewhere. Frank nudged Kobra with his shoulder and stepped away so he could have his own arm space.

Tension made the air thick. The black car was coming down the road both too quickly, and not fast enough. Party moved to stand beside Kobra, mouth tense below the edges of his yellow mask. Jet joined Party, visor down. Nobody spoke above the music that Grace was playing. She’d hopped up onto the hood of the Trans AM to pick a station, and then she sidled over to Frank’s side.

“Kick their butts,” she announced, reaching up to punch his arm.

“Will do,” Frank said. “Don’t cry too much if Kobra wimps out.”

“Fuck off,” Kobra muttered, voice low.

Frank took a drag on his cigarette and blew it right at Kobra’s face. “No thanks.”

“You’re vile,” Kobra muttered, waving his hand around his face, even though he probably had the rebreather on.

Frank snorted. He fell silent when the sound of tires slowed until they were just barely crunching at the sand. Beside him, Grace was clutching to her little radio, face tense. She cranked up the volume and Mad Gear and the Missile Kid blasted out, gritty as the sand beneath their boots. Frank sucked his cigarette down with every breath, finally letting it fall to the ground where he smothered it with his foot.

Korse slammed the door of the car, and marched over to the ridiculous line. The lacy sleeves of his coat fluttered in the slight breeze. He examined them, and met Party’s eyes dead on. He didn’t smile, just pointed his Dracs to stand in front of Jet, Party and Frank. Frank could imagine Party’s eyes narrowing and his hand tightening around his yellow gun when Korse moved in front of Kobra. His eyes were gleaming in his bald head.

Nobody moved, afraid to be the first one, the cause of the deaths of their comrades, but Frank could feel the tension in Jet and Kobra building. He saw the shift in Korse’s eyes, and they moved in unison, Killjoys pulling their guns up a split second before the Dracs did.

It was enough for Frank: he caught his Drac in the chest and re-primed to get its head. He turned, stepping back a few paces and priming Ghoul again. Jet had got his Drac, but there were two more emerging from the car, guns raised. Frank aimed and caught one between its rubber eyes. He skipped to the side, gun outstretched when a flash of red made him freeze.

Against the instinct that was telling Frank to run, the one telling him to prime Fun Ghoul and just shoot, and the one telling him to curl up into the fetal position to protect his spine, Frank looked.

Just for a second.

He wasn’t expecting to see Kobra supine on the ground. His red jacket had been unzipped earlier because of the heat: it revealed his shirt which was normally yellow with black splotches, not red. Never red. The colour seeping through the material, through the sand beneath him, was creeping out to paint an unsteady circle, edges uneven. He’d been up against Korse: he hadn’t even had a chance.

He wasn’t expecting to see Jet, helmet misshapen on one side, leg propped up like he was just lounging, but arms oddly still at his sides.

And he definitely wasn’t expecting to see Party lying with his head in a puddle of red. His mask had been knocked off at some point, and it was just barely touching his forehead. His gun was lying just off his shoulder. His left hand was curled up like he was holding something, and his eyes...if it weren’t for the stains around his head, or his unmoving chest, Frank would say that he was sleeping.

Frank was breathing hard, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he stepped back. Blood cold in the heat of the desert whose sand was blowing over his friends.

His dead friends.

“This is nice,” Korse said. “I hope you’ve enjoyed the little show, Frank. I didn’t put it on just for you but it’s always wonderful when there’s an audience for your work, don’t you find?”

“You sick fuck,” Frank snarled.

“Hm.” Korse beamed at Frank. “Well. As fun as this has been, I think we’re done here. I’ve always wanted to have it out somewhere cleaner than this dingy old desert, but some things just aren’t meant to be, I suppose.”

Frank primed Fun Ghoul, but he wasn’t fast enough. Korse shot him clean and fair, one beam that Frank felt burning a path through his chest, up into his eyes, and all the way down to his toes. He fell forward, landing with his gun stretched out in front of him. His hands broke his fall a little, but everything was wet and dark, so dark. It had been daylight just a few minutes ago. The sun couldn’t be setting yet.

Sounds faded, the white noise of water rushing down Frank’s ears.

“Don’t,” he managed grasping to the threads of guitar pounding through the floor beneath him as water overtook him, flooding his mind. He’d be under the current soon, down in that dark cavern where he could finally, finally rest.

“Don’t turn down the music.”

He sighed, dust tickling his nose. The lights winked out, the floor fell, the tide tugged at his mind.

And Frank let go.

**Author's Note:**

> [SERIES CONTINUES IN PART 2: RUNAWAY SCARS](http://archiveofourown.org/works/365673)


End file.
